New Battle Pets

As with Raiding with Leashes in 5.1, there are 10 pets to collect from old bosses, and one pet as a reward for completing the achievement. This new round of raid-related pets is from The Eye, Serpentshrine Cavern, and Karazhan and the Attunement title jokingly refers to the complicated process of running all Burning Crusade raiders through the starter instances in order to enter Hyjal Summit and Black Temple.

The Beast of Fable dailies now can reward Pet Treat, which increases battle pet experienced gained by 50% for an hour.If you haven't gotten any good loot from Pet Supplies in a while, protection against bad luck streaks is in place.All Pet Battle quests now award experience, and all Pet Battle quests on Pandaria also award Lesser Charms of Good Fortune and Valor Points.A new weekly Battle Pet PvP quest is coming: What We've Been Training For. You'll have to defeat 10 players, and you'll get 0 Valor Points and Brawler's Pet Supplies.

General Improvements

Several general improvements are coming to pet battles in 5.3:

Hit chance is now displayed at the top of tooltips for all abilities.

When switching battle pets on and off your team, the game will remember what abilities you selected for the pets when swapping them back in.

Pets fighting against higher level opponents have had their miss rate reduced from 5% per level to 2%.

Accuracy Changes

Bonus damage has been added to many basic abilities, at the cost of slightly reduced accuracy. This was meant to bring back some randomness to pet battles, so games were less predictable.

Since the base 5% to dodge was removed, and the chance to miss against enemies at higher levels was reduced, reducing an abilitiy's hit chance kept some uncertainty and (nerve-wracking) fun on the battlefield.

Duels and Spectator Mode

In less happy news, pet battles against wild and player pets are now viewable by others in the world. Not so great for PvP servers.

Players can see pets on both teams, as well as all of their attacks. You can't target any of the engaged pets though.

Players can see the battling player as well. This could have interesting implications on PvP realms, if players can be attacked while battling.

Shadowmeld or Stealth can put you into a special hidden mode to the opposite faction. Your team of visible battle pets still calls attention to you, but you show up as a random NPC which can be any race/class combo, usually wearing tier gear. So far I've been an orc warrior in Tier 6, orc hunter in Tier 5, forsaken, and human Death Knight.

Patch Notes

Rygarius

Pet Battles

General

Bonus damage has been added to many basic abilities, at the cost of slightly reduced accuracy.

Pet Battle Duels are now available in all dungeons and raids. Enjoy! Pet Battles in the wild and duels are now viewable by other players in the world. Hit Chance is now displayed for all abilities. Abilities no longer have a base chance to miss or be dodged by opposing pets of the same level. Reduced the chance to miss when fighting higher-level opponents from 5% per level to 2% per level. A series of new achievements and rewards have been added for max-level matchmaking PvP pet battles Wins for max-level, matchmaking PvP pet battles can now be tracked in statistics. Battle pets' recent ability loadouts will now be saved when pets are swapped in and out of battle slots. Pandaren Spirit Pet Supplies now has a chance to drop a family specific rare Battle-Stone. Species specific Flawless Battle-Stones are now Bind to Battle.net account.Black Claw now deals 20% less damage.Blistering Cold had now deals 100% more damage.Corrosion now deals 5 damage-per-round, up from 2, and increases damage taken by 2, down from 5.Counterspell now deals 10 damage in addition to the ability's previous effects.Deep Freeze now has a 10% reduced chance to hit. Fury of 1,000 Fists now has a 4-round cooldown,up from 3 rounds.Haymaker now has a 3-round cooldown.Headbutt now has a 4-round cooldown,up from 3 rounds.Hunting Party now has an increased cooldown of 4 rounds, up from 3 rounds.Impale now has a cooldown of 3 rounds, down from 5 rounds, deals 17% less damage, and no longer deals damage as a percentage of the target’s health. The ability now deals a flat amount of bonus damage instead.Interrupting Gaze now deals 50% more damage.Interrupting Jolt now has a 4-round cooldown, down from 5 rounds.Kick now deals 50% more damage.Minefield now has a 5-round cooldown, and lasts for 9 rounds, down from 10 rounds.Mudslide now has a 4-round cooldown,up from 3 rounds.Predatory Strike no longer deal damage as a percentage of the target’s health. The ability now deals a flat amount of bonus damage instead.Quicksand now has a 4-round cooldown,up from 3 rounds.Reckless Strike now has a 1-round cooldown.Rupture now has a 4-round cooldown,up from 3 rounds.Shock and Awe now has a 4-round cooldown,up from 3 rounds.Soulrush now has a 4-round cooldown,up from 3 rounds. Fixed an issue where pet abilities that had a chance to stun were not working correctly.

Whispers from pet tamers in the north have spread word of an elusive new battle pet that can be found in the frozen tundras of Northrend. The Unborn Val'kyr awaits.

Battle Pet drops have been added to Burning Crusade raids. These new pets can be obtained from raid bosses in Karazhan, The Eye and Serpentshrine Cavern. Obtaining all of these new pets will reward players with a new battle pet, Tito!

A new achievement and reward has been added for characters that complete every Pet Battle daily quest in a single day.

Protection for bad luck streaks have been added to Battle-Stones from pet supplies bags and wild battles. Each bag or battle that does not provide a stone has a progressively better chance to award a stone to the player.

Beasts of Fable daily quest has been broken into three separate chapters. Players can now choose to do any or all of the chapters each day. Rewards have been modified to include a new consumable that will boost battle pet XP for a limited time.

All Pet Battle daily quests on Pandaria, Beasts of Fable and Spirit Tamer quests will now award experience, valor, and Lesser Charms of Good Fortune.

All Pet Battle quests will now award experience.

Increased the difficulty of elite pets on the Beasts of Fable quest.

A new weekly quest for max-level, matchmaking PvP pet battles has been added.

Comments

Comment by Azrile

on 2013/05/13 19:28:32

meh, I hate the whole ´lvl 25 pvp´ thing. To me the fun is collecting pets, leveling pets and finding rares. I don´t hate pvp pet battles while leveling, but there is little reason to do pet battles with a full team of 25s.

The real problem is that is the ´bracket´ where all the idiocy takes place that we have to deal with. People making teams of 3 of the same pet, and all with turtle and healing abilities, and just prolonging a match for an hour hoping you quit ( ie, and taking max time to pick their ability).

I was hoping the whole pet battle system was going to be more carefree... but here we go.. let´s make a team of 25s that you can´t kill.. The entire system is not balanced around being so competitive.

would be much more fun if it were just to win 10 pvp matches per week, at least then it could be used to level pets.

Comment by auntmousie

on 2013/05/14 16:24:52

Since pets are shared across all characters and multiple realms, what exactly is the point of species-specific flawless battlestones being BoA? How is that any different from BoP? I mean, great, I can mail my Flawless Elemental Battlestone to my alt... who has the same Elemental pets I do... so really it's just a way I can squander 30c?

Comment by Withers

on 2013/05/14 18:59:14

It's certainly great to see an increase in pet models. However, it would be lovely if they took some time to develop the idea of pet battling a little bit more. I worry this will wind up going the way of archaeology...

Comment by AingealWroth

on 2013/05/15 02:34:26

For those complaining about the need to raid to get pets (I am assuming you mean current raids, because if you are complaining about doing old content, I simply cannot fathom why), keep in mind that all of the raid drop pets are cage-able (current and otherwise), so if you have a friend that raids, no issue.

Also, very happy with the changes to the supply bag 'bad luck streak', since I know some people go weeks without stones.The addition of spirit's dropping stones in their bags is odd to me, personally, but kewl for more stone chances!And tyty blizz for splitting Fabled quest into smaller parts, that circuit was a little insane.

Comment by AriesShion

on 2013/05/16 12:32:29

If we are to do more old raid content how about making some raid pieces bind on account

This would be awesome. Let it apply to just the tokens, and restrict it to, say, 2 xpacs back ( so currently vanilla and BC raids).

Comment by Mantrhax

on 2013/05/16 23:29:21

little minds working for blizzard right now..hope this change soon...

Comment by Wazdakka

on 2013/05/17 20:40:53

So the new raid pets are Bind on Pickup?

Drat. I'll have to head to Karazhan again.

Comment by Azrile

on 2013/05/17 21:36:26

So the new raid pets are Bind on Pickup?

Drat. I'll have to head to Karazhan again.

All of the raid pets are BoP.. even the ones we have now. But they can be caged after you learn them.

I only figured that out this week because I got a drop in Naxx that I already had. I went to mail it to my bank alt to sell, it I couldn´t mail it because it was soulbound. Then I realized that I had to learn the pet, then cage it on my alt.

Comment by Catriona

on 2013/05/18 21:34:07

In less happy news, pet battles against wild and player pets are now viewable by others in the world. Not so great for PvP servers.

I'm confused as to how this is different than before. I've been getting knocked out of pet battles by raging e-peens for months (which means they land the first blow, so you're screwed). When you're pet battling it just looks like you're standing there.

Comment by Yzzami

on 2013/05/19 12:04:34

"Players can see the battling player as well. "

Haven't they always been able to see players while they're battling pets?

Comment by Gorgaan

Comment by AkimboYojimbo

Did the Seasoned Soldier change get reverted? I was looking forward to a cheaper WW while going TG.

Comment by anisadora

on 2013/05/21 02:49:47

Sooo lame... Blizz is making people do old content...

How is this them holding a gun to your head?

Comment by Shoadowolf

on 2013/05/21 20:45:14

Good news! You can stop saving for your Mini-Tyrael and now get the Vykrul pet or whatever its name is! :)P

Comment by CykloneGarona

on 2013/05/22 08:11:35

Has there been any word yet on the drop rates of these pets?

Comment by dsm33145

on 2013/05/22 09:32:56

Has anyone figured out how to defeat Gorespine? I have tried aquatic, flying, mechanical, dragonkin and combos of rare pets to no avail. He hits like a truck and his shield does 3 times the damage to your attack. Impossible to beat him.

Comment by Mantrhax

on 2013/05/22 17:41:13

More Blizzard lies

"Bad luck protection has been implemented for Pet Supply rewards, and some quests have more rewards now.'

got 24 bags today and only one stone. geting tired of all Blizzard bs.

Comment by jamesjiao

on 2013/05/22 21:13:49

Sooo lame... Blizz is making people do old content...

Ah yes, another comment from a 12-year-old (or could be trolling). There is a huge difference between the word 'to make' and the word 'to encourage'. Blizzard is trying to do the latter.

Comment by Drax13

on 2013/05/23 14:53:45

Almost finished with 'The Longest Day', having already won every battle that awards a pet bag, and have only received one stone. So much for 'bad luck protection'. But then again, my luck is probably hard to protect against.

Comment by Azrile

on 2013/05/23 19:43:00

Almost finished with 'The Longest Day', having already won every battle that awards a pet bag, and have only received one stone. So much for 'bad luck protection'. But then again, my luck is probably hard to protect against.

Just be aware, the achievment is bugged and you will not get your stone. It is a known issue they are fixing soon.